Warm weather interrupts Fernwood Botanical Gardens' ice sculpting

NILES, Mich. -- The above average temps this holiday season are causing quite a few problems for Fernwood Botanical Gardens. The Buchanan Garden Center's holiday tradition of ice sculpting has been interrupted.

Many of the sculptures melt after a short time because of the warm weather.

Normally, they only take about an hour to make, and then they're on display for quite a while but now it takes just over a day to melt them.

"The heat and the little bit of rain that keeps drizzling in melts the ice fast, so hopefully it'll stay cold," said Tim Carrigan, Ice Sculptor. "We're gonna make this a little bit bigger so it'll hold up for a couple days. But, you know with this type of weather it goes pretty quick."

If you'd like to take a look at the artwork, it will be on display until next Saturday at Fernwood Botanical Gardens in Buchanan.

Ice sculpting was just one of many events at Fernwood Sunday.

A lot of little kids got the chance to make some arts and crafts and even hear a story from Santa.

Fernwood said this is one of the busiest times of the year for the Botanical Gardens and they just love seeing the smiles on those kids faces.

"It's not just for summer, we have a lot of things here in the winter time," said Jan Ferris, Special Projects Manager. "It's really nice, we're decorated really pretty, we have a lot of children's activities. Everybody loves it, it's kinda become a tradition."